The door didn't open—it vomited them into a room drowning in sequins and bad vibes. Disco balls spun like drunken planets, made of what looked like… weeping eyeballs. Neon mics hung like nooses. The air tasted like cheap vodka and regret.
A sign flickered in migraine-bright pink:
TRUTH OR DARE-AOKE
SING YOUR SIN OR WEAR YOUR SKIN
Priya clutched the pulsing guilt-mark on her cheek. "This is a literal nightmare."
Glint whirred beside her, his chassis still charred black from the blast. "Open mic night in hell. How… banal."
Jax cracked his knuckles. "I got this. Sang Bon Jovi in a Bangkok piss-hole once. Guy got shanked mid-chorus. Kept singing."
Nash didn't answer. Her eyes were locked on the song menu glowing on the sticky floor:
"I Faked the Haunting of Sarah Grace" (Tune: "Wrecking Ball")
"My Dad's a War Criminal" ("Mamma Mia!")
"The Sister I Killed With Cosmic Math" ("Sound of Silence")
The last one hit her like a sucker punch. Lena.
Priya's guilt-mark flared neon-blue. "Feed me," it hissed, low and wet.
She flinched. "Guess… it's my turn."
The spotlight hit her like judgment. The mic slithered into her hand—cold, alive. Music swelled, cheesy and cruel.
"I used to post… such pretty lies…" Priya's voice trembled. Static tears leaked down her cheeks, sucked up by the hungry mark. "Filters bright… and haunted eyes…"
Glint rolled closer, his lens focusing. "Embrace the cringe, darling. It's all we have."
"But Sarah Grace…? She wasn't dead…" Priya's knuckles whitened around the mic. "Just napping hard… inside her bed…"
The disco balls shuddered. Eyeballs wept glittery blood.
"I PAINTED FAKE ORBS ON THE WALL!" she belted, voice cracking. "DUMPED ICE WATER IN THE HALL! SENT CHATS FROM 'BEYOND THE VEIL'! MADE HER MOM WEEP—PALE AND FRAIL!"
Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.
Priya sagged. "She… killed herself. After the trolls found her. Said I… 'stole her ghost before she was done.'"
The jukebox exploded in a shower of sparks.
"FEEDING COMPLETE!" boomed the demonic cruise-director voice.
The guilt-mark dissolved. Perched on Priya's shoulder now—a tiny, translucent Sarah Grace in ripped fishnets, sipping a neon-blue martini. "Miss me, bitch?" she smirked.
Jax stared. "The fuck is that?"
"My… emotional support ghost?" Priya whispered.
Then the ceiling ripped open.
The Void.
No laugh this time. Just… a yawning hunger. Cold seeped into Nash's bones.
"ENOUGH COMEDY," it boomed. The sound vibrated in their teeth. "GLINT. YOUR VOICE. GIVE IT."
A beam of pure, screaming nothingness lanced down—
—and hit Glint dead center.
"ERRO—" His voice died. Not staticky. Gone. Just a hollow, mechanical whine. His lights flickered frantic morse:
... (S-O-S)
.-. (F-U-C)
Nash lunged. "NO!"
"YOUR TURN," the Void ignored her. "NASHIRA VOSS. SING… OR WATCH THEM FADE TO STATIC."
The song menu flickered. Only one title burned now:
"THE SISTER I KILLED WITH COSMIC MATH" (Tune: "Sound of Silence")
Nash's throat closed. Lena's tooth was a shard of ice in her pocket.
The mic felt like a lead weight. Cold. Squirming.
No music played. Just the drip of void-spit from the ceiling. Plink. Plink. Plink.
"Hello, Lena… my old ghost…" Nash rasped. The words tasted like ash. "I've come to fail you… at your post…"
Jax looked away. Marco coded furiously into his own palm. Ghost-Sarah sipped her drink.
"Fool! I charted… comet trails…" Nash's voice broke. "While your frail body… turned so pale… 'The universe needs saving, sis!' But YOU needed… one last kiss…"
She wasn't singing anymore. She was spitting blood onto the stage.
"AND THE VOID LAUGHED IN MY MIND! 'SHE DIES WHILE YOU STARE BLIND!' THE ONLY LEGACY I'D BUILD… WAS BLOOD ON A CALCULUS QUILT!"
Rage detonated in her chest. She hurled the mic at the Void. "COME DOWN AND FIGHT, YOU COSMIC COWARD!"
The Void answered.
Not a beam. A FIST of pure entropy. Crushing. Erasing. Aimed straight at Nash's heart.
Glint moved.
Silent. Wheels shrieking on sticky floor. He launched himself—a scorched, sarcastic missile—into Nash's legs.
She crashed sideways as the entropy-fist vaporized the spot where she'd stood.
The blast wave threw her against a wall of weeping eyeballs.
When the light died…
…Glint was gone.
Just a scorch mark on the floor. And a single, bent wheel, spinning slowly to a stop.
Silence.
Real silence. Not the Void's. The kind that comes after something good gets ripped out of the world.
Priya screamed. Ghost-Sarah patted her head. "First rodeo, sweetie?"
Marco scrambled forward, scooped up Glint's wheel. His small hands shook. "He… saved you."
Nash pushed herself up. Her palms were raw. She stared at the scorched circle on the floor. "Why?"
Jax picked up the dented mic. Cleared his throat. Sang one raw, off-key line into the hollow silence:
"'Cause even Roombas… hate the end of the show…"
The door didn't open this time.
It dissolved.
And standing there, backlit by dying starlight…
Lena.
Nash's dead sister. Seventeen years old. Wearing the thin hospital gown she'd died in. One hand clutched a flickering, dying star like a nightlight. Blood stained her lips.
She smiled. A cracked, painful thing.
"Hey, genius," Lena whispered. Her voice was rust and static. "Missed you."
Behind her, the Void pulsed. Waiting.